The falling Ice Cubes bit

[shrewdlogarithm]

I was enjoying the hell out of the game upto that point - what the hell were you thinking here tho?

The controls aren't 100% at the best of times but I was getting along OK. Yeah, there were some shoddy bits where I got a bit lost but I rode those out and then I got to this bit.

Reading this forum, it's clear you're using your paying customers as your playtesting team so here it comes - putting a section in which shows off the flaws of the game in a way which punches the player in the nuts over and over is really unwise!

The game offers no sense of distance/depth once you're up-in-the-air, the grapple doesn't bother showing what's in-range (would make things a LOT better if it did) so you flail around wondering if you can maybe get to a cube before it falls - with no sense of how high/low/close/far you are from anything which has an end result of you dying over and over - HORRIBLE

You shouldn't be aiming to be Deadcore or Cloudbuilt - focus on the amazing world, keep people hooked to the story, let them enjoy the massive jumps and soaring grappling and keep the "smash your face into the monitor" moments to zero is my advice.

Upto here I wasn't just enjoying the game - I was planning on replaying it but when you hit things like this - why bother? and why recommend others bother??

[CrossDressiNate]

I love how everyone in this generation ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about a game being hard. It's a good thing you never played games in the 90's. Now those games got really hard and unfair. Life is unfair, man the ♥♥♥♥ up.

[shrewdlogarithm]

I played my first "computer game" (arcade) early 1977 - I wrote my first in 1980 so I'm not part of whatever generation you're sneering at...

It's not about how hard a game is, it's about making them enjoyable - if more people understood that, games wouldn't suck so much...

[[GNG] SebastianZ]

Hi,

I'm sorry that you have stopped enjoying the game because of the difficulty. We have tried to make the game possible to beat for most people that plays it and at the same time keep it challenging. There certainly are parts of the game where we could had done a better job. =)

[shrewdlogarithm]

I think it's important to emphasise that upto that point I'd LOVED the game - it was a contender for my personal GOTY.

On Christmas Eve I entered the caves and approached the first village and it was MAGICAL - the world, the atmosphere and the MASSIVE jumps and stuff were joyous - I loved it.

Sometimes that's enough - give the player a wild ride but don't derail their train when they falter. If I want to be punched-in-the-face I'll play Cloudbuilt or DeadCore (I play both anyway) - I'm sure some of the bits in ASAMU caused other people to swear but there's a definite change-of-pace in the ice cave, moving away from the joyous leaping and exploration towards more frustrating jumps and punishment for not 'guessing what's around the corner'.

I'd even gotten that far without noticing the cursor 'brightens' when a grapple is possible - but at the speed you're moving that's not really much use and when you're flying through space with nothing to grasp it's not helpful eitehr ;0

So you just keep on trying to find a path which works but it gets less and less fun - by the end you'll be glad it's over perhaps - and that's a criminal shame IMO

So props for the first 75% of the game at least - you created something truly magical upto that point.

[TN Hoff]

I have to agree that I experienced a difficulty spike here, and a few times wasn't sure where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do - but it wasn't all that bad. There were a few times where I found myself having difficulty judging space and distance, and when I got to this part, I was at a loss of what to do for a couple of minutes - but I realized that they do try to draw your attention to what you need to focus on with lighting - and while not quite as obvious as it tends to be in video games these days, I managed to figure it out.

The game lets you try as many times as you like without a penalty - and while I don't necessarily think that's the very best way to have players figure a level out, it works well enough - and we are talking about one of the final segments of the game here. It is supposed to be challenging. In a perfect world, this studio would have had the resources to polish and perfect this game more, but I personally think what they've accomplished here is fantastic. (I don't believe they had the benefit of a major publisher and their budget like Deadcore did.)

I do think there is some room for improvement here, but I certainly wouldn't go so far as to accuse them of using paying customers as playtesters. The game isn't perfect - but I think it's quite good - especially for coming out of such a small studio. (Look back at Valve when it was younger - the original Half-Life was barely a fraction as balanced and straightforward as its later games - these guys are learning, too.)

It is true - the difficulty curve in this game stutters and spikes more than I'd like - but for the whole experience, it was totally worth it - and when I did figure out a frustrating area, it was rewarding. I think they can learn from what wasn't perfect here and apply those lessons to future projects - but I think ASAMU is far from broken - if a little lumpy. I think the game might get a B- or C+ when it comes to clarity of communication with the player, but the overall experience was still a resounding A for me.

I say all this to acknowledge the issues while still cheering on the team - I've seen what they are capable of, and I want to see what they can do in the future with what they've learned.

[[GNG] SebastianZ]

Thank you both for your feedback. We try and soak in as much feedback about the game as we can to be able to find our identity as a developer. As you say, we are young and we are learning but with all this support from people who are passionate about A Story About My Uncle I believe that we have the potential to make even greater products in the future.

[Lucathegreat]

I almost dropped the game there too, that part was just awful, sorry, but I'm too nerdy so I had to get it through.
The problem with it is that it's just too random, and not fun: nothing depends on what you do or on your behavior, you can fly up in the air, aim at a cube and by the time you're there, the cube is already too low and you die with it because you couldn't see how quickly it descended. Or fly up but be unable to hook at anything else, everything is like too high up, or too low, or too far away, and you die again. And so on, and on, and on.
Dying 50 times (by something that's not even close your fault) until you get that lucky run where you can cross the gap is *not* fun, it's frustrating. Maybe it would've worked better by having all the blocks fall slower, or to have some sort of safe pattern or something.
There were other similar parts in the game (like the windmills one), but this was the top, or... the worst.

Still, I appreciate your search for feedbacks, as I read you're still a very young team so these clunky sections are kinda forgivable.

[Mellow]

(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ ┻━┻
I just ragequitted at this very part. It's way past the point of being mildly infuriating... But I guess I'll try it again tomorrow :D Good game yeah, but indeed there is no feedback whatsoever as to where I might be able to get, and at this stage.........

[shrewdlogarithm]

My tip would be to focus on the cubes which are falling SLOWLY - aiming at the others is a waste of time as you'll be too low when you get there...

If that bit riled you tho - the stalagtite corridor will kill you (it did me)

[Mellow]

:) got past that infuriating point - figured out that once you grapple on to stuff they sort of slow down on their own - albeit temporarily...

but now, somewhere deep into the stalagtite corridor, I think I have to jump... far... not sure though...

EDIT: also that stalagtite corridor shows that there is absolutely no sense at all for distances available for grappling, I grappled from one point of the room to the complete opposite, which was like - 50 meters away orso... bug or feature?

EDIT #2: Oh THAT CORRIDOR ><

EDIT #3: Aaah man... Finished it... The feels man, the feeeeeels... :'(

[shrewdlogarithm]

Agree completely on the range thing - there's a bit earlier where you have to jump between 2 windmills and it's REALLY hard to judge distances/you have no sense of forward movement speed either...

The corridor is a real ♥♥♥♥♥ tho - there's just a bit too-much trial-and-error and some bits are a bit "why the hell didn't that grapple" too.

The ''drop chute' after it is a massive, massive buzz tho - if they'd just balanced the run up the end a bit, ASAMU would have been my GoTY for sure...

I'd even speedrun it - but the ice cubes and the stalagtites are not speedrun material - too random/fiddly/frustrating...

[tazamiga]

I feel your pain but all i can suggest is study the patterns. Only try to land on slow moving high blocks and make sure each time you jump you jump to a higher one. It actually only takes a couple of minutes to get through once you work it out. Just treat it as another puzzle and don't get overwhelmed by the amount of falling blocks. The ones moving too fast are next to useless so ignore them. Use boost often , when you land on blocks you get it back again. As a tip , ensure you have boost to jump to the final platform at the end as i don't think you can make it without it. At least i couldn't. If it's any consolation there are more frustrating parts after this lol.
Practice jumping on the cube next to you where you start the level as you need to ensure you have that mechanic down pat . If you allow yourself to get too low you die anyway regardless if you make it onto cubes or not. As soon as you see lots of fog you are too low so boost out of there, Don't spend too long on cubes after you land on them and watch out for ones that turn as they can throw off your sense of direction. Just always look for the next cube to jump to when you are on one or boost to the nearest one.
As for the corridor i think i am there now arghh lol

[Marco]

I just wanted to say I suck at platform games and still can't beat Super mario brothers but I did eventually get through this. Got through the falling coridor in 1 shot but that was pure luck I'm sure. The game is awesome. I'll never play it again but to those stuck. Keep trying. It's worth it.

[wcc]

I have to agree with shrewdlogarithm. Sadly, in the most passages the game gives away the great feeling of speed and flight for some mean cutting edge challenges. That's why I did not enjoy the game as much as I would have otherwise.
Gave up at this very stage. Falling boxes > me, and it's not the 90s anymore. :(

[[⦿] Kauz]

Well, i've completed it on first try. It is this simple:
1) you graple cube;
2) you fly above it;
3) you graple it from above, to land on it;
4) repeate.